Alaska Museums brace for financial impact of President Trump’s latest executive order

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – In an effort to continue the downsizing of the federal government, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”

In the latest order Trump outlined the agencies he wants to see shuttered.

One of the organizations is the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The institute accounts for 250 million dollars in taxpayer funding that gets distributed throughout the United States.

According to the director of Museums Alaska, Dixie Clough, the impacts in Alaska will be felt by the dismantling of the institute.

“[The federal government] supports all of our museums, all of our libraries,” Clough said.

There are over 100 museums throughout the state — each one with unique needs. The agency handles reimbursable grants, meaning the museums spend the money they have on hand to complete projects and are reimbursed with funding through the agency.

“So, if someone currently has a grant that they’re working on, they are spending the money upfront, and then they have to ask ILMS for reimbursement, any museum with a grant currently will have already spent money,” Clough explained.

In Alaska there are two primary ways the funding is used. The first is through expanding access to the resources available through the museums, these include digitizing exhibits and creating new exhibits.

“The federal funding from ILMS really allowed museums to do impactful projects that would reach more people and tell more history for Alaska, to not only their own communities but communities further out that they probably won’t be able to do anymore,” Clough said.

The second way is by expanding training programs through the museums to keep talent in the state.

“Quite a few of our past IMLS grants in Alaska have been one museum applying for a grant and then providing training to a lot of smaller institutions,” she said. “So, quite a few of these smaller volunteer-run organizations who rely on maybe IMLS-funded training through other museums won’t be able to have access to that anymore,”.

Clough also explained the potential impact on Alaska’s tourism industry.

“Alaska has such almost like a fantasy world in a lot of people’s brains,” she said. “Museums are a really big part of the tourism industry. When you get off a cruise ship, you want to go to a museum, learn about the town you’re in.”

The goal of downsizing the federal government and reducing waste spending has been one of the President’s core messages. The order gives the agency seven days to fulfill the request of the White House or risk losing its funding. President Trump says this is necessary to help cut down on the waste in the federal government.

“These are people in many cases they don’t show up for work, nobody even knows if they exist,” President Trump said to press correspondents on Air Force One.

Clough says that when we get to the end of the week ILMS may not exist and the long-term damage has yet to be seen.

“The history and culture and art of Alaska is so important and having that federal funding allowed museums to share it more with more people in different ways, and with this executive order, that ability will be very much decimated,” she concluded.

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